Meet Laya

Laya is a 10 year old, female neutered crossbreed who came to see one of our surgeons Barbara to investigate an oral mass noticed by her owner. The mass had been diagnosed by the referring vets as a low grade malignant fibrosarcoma and dental x-rays revealed no bone invasion.

Laya had a general anaesthetic and a CT scan of her head and chest – this showed no metastasis (tumour spread) to the lungs, however this time the bone invasion was very obvious! A bone lesion needs to lose a significant amount of mineral content before it is visible on x-rays, however a CT scan will pick up these changes much earlier.

The CT scan was important for surgical planning as a larger amount of bone needed to be removed than initially planned. Laya had a rostral maxillectomy performed by Barbara, where the tumour and surrounding bone was removed. The surgery went very well, Laya made a great recovery and started eating the next morning.

Well done Laya!